Sergals
Sergals (Japanese: サーガル, Sâgaru) are the most well known fictional species of the Vilous universe. They have many features reminiscent of sharks, rabbits, kangaroos, canines, reptiles, avian, dinosaurs (theropods and raptors), and are covered in mammal-like fur. Among the races of the planet Tal, they belong to the Eltus race group. They have a population similar to or larger than the Agudners. They are ovoviviparous and do not possess mammalian breasts. They are biologically similar to mammals, but they are hard to be strictly classified the same as class of Earth's creatures entirely. While possessing individual personalities, their general character is simplistic, optimistic and naive. They are very cowardly as individuals but can behave with a mob mentality when influenced by a strong willed or charismatic individual due to their deeply religious nature. A whole of them have most "animalish" nature in comparison with other Eltus races. Hence they are close to supernatural culture, have superior sixth sense and intuition. Especially Northerners show strongest those. General Rain Silves is the most widely known sergal. While sergals have become known on the internet for having a monstrously violent and sexually deviant nature, this behavior is generally confined to Rain Silves and those under her influence. This article describe about common features of all sergals, but there are regional racial variations in appearance and behavior: Important note: Important note: Most of this article is completed but is still in need of revisions, mainly proof-reading. Also more information may be added in future. Important note 2: This article only has modern information. Old history and canon went to the "History of Vilous Development" article. 'Summary' Sergals generally fall into two broad classifications: Northern and Southern. While the difference in temperature between the north and south of Planet Tal is not too great, the differences in appearance between the two subspecies are somewhat based on Bergmann's rule. Northern sergals generally have a larger physique and thicker fur with shorter ears, while Southern sergals are slender, shorter and have thinner fur and longer ears. Due to the principle of hybrid vigor (heterosis), Eastern sergals are larger and more muscular than their Northern and Southern cousins being a hybrid of both species. Sergals tend to be simple minded and have weak critical thinking abilities, as such they are easily influenced by their environment or by charismatic or strong-willed individuals. This is especially apparent in Northern sergals who live in fear of their natural environment, and their submission to the leadership of General Rain Silves. 'Physical description' While originally lacking noticeable outward physical difference between sexes, female Southern sergals have recently developed more "human" feminine traits. An adult sergal's average height is around 183 ~ 196cm (6'0" ~ 6'5"). In General Rain Silves' case, she is 214 cm (7'0"). Sergal fur has a straightforward two-tone color pattern like that of a shark or many earthly mammals. Additional patterning such as stripes or spots are not common. In rare cases however, some are patterned and civilized sergals such as Southern and Eastern sergals can choose to dye their fur in flashy, vivid, exotic colors. Thus, there are multifarious color patterns in urban areas via postnatal fur-dyeing. Their fur is particularly long around the base of their ears, base of their tail, their breast, wrists and heels. There is a conspicuous ">" shaped breastbone (the keel) in the center of their chest. However, this point is commonly overlooked in fan art. 'Head and face' The shape of the head and snout is inspired by sharks, with swept-back and pointed ears. The top of their heads are completely flat and smooth. They do not have browlines or curved foreheads. Ear holes cannot normally be seen from the side, because their ear holes always turn to rear and are completely covered by rear pointing fur. In other words, their ears are NOT like the ears of Earth's creatures such as cats or foxes at all. A thick mane covers the back of their long neck from around the midsection of the head down to the area around the shoulder blades. Eye colors are generally grey or blue. Golden eyes are a result of a mutation unique to Rain Silves. Eyes face outwards like a lizard's or rabbit's and their pupils are vertical in a similar manner to reptiles. This gives them good peripheral vision and situational awareness. However, they cannot focus on a single point making the use of projectile weapons such as bows and guns difficult. 'Voice and cries' Sergals have an avian style throat structure that gives them high pitched vocalizations. They are able to speak a general language and can also communicate using various animalistic "cries". These include sounds like: "The shriek of a parrot" "The whine of a dog" "The neigh of a horse" "The cry of a deer" For example, a sergal may give a high pitched shriek when charging into combat, or make a whimpering or yapping sound when frightened. Crying as communication is generally confined to Northern and Western sergals due to their more primitive culture. Eastern sergals may also sometimes use cries but their vocalizations are generally deeper and have rustic dialect like animal. Southern sergals almost only use verbal language due to their cultural interaction with other races such as the agudners, therefore using cries to communicate is lost to the South. 'Mouth and tongue' The edge of a Sergal's mouth is roughly in vertical alignment with the eyes. The mouth can open very wide like a reptile's. They have a thick black lower lip extending from the front of the lower jaw to the middle of the sides resembling that found in canines. Due to their mouth and throat structure, prey such as small animals are able to be swallowed whole. When eat the meat of large animals, cutting them into chunks because their jaw structure and lack of molars makes their chewing ineffective. They can swallow piglets size things as largest things that are able to be swallowed by them without cutting. Damage from bite wounds is not so strong, because they don't have as many teeth and their jaws are not as strong. They have 12 fangs like canine teeth, those are replaced for the life several times. Their taste is some rough in comparison with Agudners'. Some sergals may have forked tongues like that of a snake, however, this is not a natural feature, but a surgical cut made for fashion or ritual. Rain Silves was the first sergal to be seen with a forked tongue, having had it was cut by her abusive mother or cut by herself as ritual that are believed to bring power. All other sergals with forked tongues are mimics of Rain. Hence, the tongue forking did not exist as common culture until Rain appeared. There are naturally occurring folds on both sides of the tongue near the back of the throat. 'Chest and breastbone' A sergal's arms, shoulders, chest, abdomen and waist approximately resemble that of a human. One important distinction is the prominent ">" shaped breastbone, sternum or keel. Due to the dense mass of chest fur, this bone protrusion is sometimes mistaken as merely a lump of fur. Due to the varying height of this protrusion between individuals, sergal clothing and armor is constructed with a wide raised portion around the breast to accommodate this. Soon after the introduction of the New Age canon, female sergals had breasts, but they were eventually removed. Both genders have pectoral muscles like a human male. 'Hands and feet and tail' Sergals possess three fingers and an opposable thumb on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Their fingers are similar to the fingers of rodents. While their feet have been described as being similar to avians,' their original design was based on rabbits and kangaroos.' The upper palms and soles of the feet that make contact with the ground are padded and have no fur. 2016/06/22 The official design was changed: their feet became more like kangaroos and rabbits, and a part of their pawpads develop like protuberances. These changes improve their jumping and running abilities. They are still able to catch things with their feet. However, it don't reach to the level the same as birds. Their tail is thick, muscular and elongated, with a tuft of fur at the tip. In New Age's obsolete version, sergals had a thick tuft of feathers at the base of their tail, but it was eventually removed. 'Genitalia' 'Female genitalia' The female Sergal possesses a unique prehensile tentacle structure that is normally stowed inside the vagina. This "clitoral hood" is extended during mating to grasp the male's penis and maintain erection until ejeculation. This is an adaptation to ensure successful breeding during difficult survival conditions where males become timid and avoid mating. The clitoral hood also serves as a cover to protect the vagina, allowing the female control over mating and potentially preventing rape. 'Male genitalia' Their penis is similar to those of humans but tapers off at the head. The structure of the penis is similar to canines where the penis is settled within a sheath. When erect, the entire penis becomes exposed from the base to the tip. The testicles reside outside the body and are contained in a scrotum. Sergals are often drawn with a knot on their penis (a buldge near the base that is found on canines) but they do not have them in the official canon. 'Diet' )]] While originally being carnivorous, sergals living in the more cultured and civilized regions have developed omnivorous tendencies. If they are given a choice between the meat of land animals or fish, they will prefer fish. Northern sergals are carnivorous and eat the meat of wild game animals. They also favor the meat of large animals, cutting them into chunks so that they can swallow without chewing. They will also kill small animals and swallow them whole. They may also supplement with grasses depending on the season. Southern sergals are omnivorous and mainly eat fish, plants and insects. There is not much difference in the availability of animals and plants throughout planet Tal, so differences in eating habits are easily accommodated. Southerners have also incorporated cooking into their culture and eat a variety of invertebrates. Insects are also a popular meal among them, although their variety is not as large as nevreans. Ecology and behavior There is a major cultural divide between the Northern and Southern sergals. Having been an isolated culture since ancient times, Northerners live a more primitive and somewhat barbaric lifestyle. By contrast, Southern sergals have integrated with other races such as the agudners and have advanced further in terms of civilization and culture. Northerns: Their original birthplace is unknown, but they are the oldest lineage of sergals. Northern sergals have lived among a primordial and hostile environment surrounded by dangerous primitive creatures for most of their history, and this has impeded their development as a civilization. Southerns: Southern and Eastern sergals have developed a strong and longstanding relationship with the agudners. This has fostered mutually beneficial development in culture and technology. 'Personality' A sergal's personality is strongly influenced by its surrounding culture, so there are noticeable differences in the character of sergals from different areas. In general, they are simple-minded and optimistic, and are often cowardly and easily led. Their simple-mindedness makes them focus on basic concerns, which leads to having poor awareness of the smaller details or the bigger picture. One potential benefit of this is that they don't remember quarrels and don't hold grudges. Their critical and logical thinking skills are somewhat poor. The average intelligence of an adult Sergal is comparable to that of a 14 year old human male. However, their keen intuition remains with them even into old age. Most sergals are good and decent individuals, but their naivety and simplistic nature can lead to quarreling, petty violence and sexual misbehavior. They can be easy to fool and are often swindled. 'Society' While sergals view strength as a virtue, they do not require it in leadership. Sergals prefer to cooperate in groups without hierarchy, unlike wolves who will fight for dominance in their pack. This is especially apparent with Northern sergals. Having shared their environment with dangerous primitive creatures, they formed their society around fear and respect for their natural surroundings and its inhabitants. To them nature plays both a maternal and adversarial role, and they lack a strong leader among themselves. They sometimes assign roles modeled after the talyxian-associater social structure. Having lost much of their dependence on and reverence for nature, Southern and Eastern sergals are more likely to want to test their strength amongst themselves. However, this is usually done in the form of sports or hunting contests, preferring not to dominate one another through strength. 'Sex differences' Older sergal concepts and more recent Northern sergal designs have made it difficult to determine differences between sexes from outward appearance and behavior. However, Southern and Eastern sergals have begun to show noticeable differences due to the influence of their interaction with the female agudners. For example, most Southern and Eastern females wear feminine clothing. Southern sergal females in particular have fostered their own feminine identity; "They look graceful and pretty, but they have a strong sense of justice and a stubborn, single minded side." Female sergals generally take initiative for sexuality and breeding. In domestic terms, the female is generally dominant, while in the workplace both genders play an equal role. 'Sexuality' For comparatively common feature of Eltus race, they generally don't have antipathy or aversion to homosexuals. Also peculiarly as for them, they don't stick to one partner unlike human of Earth. Their basic sexuality may correspond to polyamory and pansexuality in the case of Earth. When they pick on or flirt to someone, they value appearance most, don't mind about race differences and sex differences. But talyxians are exception and inapplicable to this, because most of talyxian species like t-stalkers don't have complete 'human rights', therefore a having sexual relationship with them are generally treated as beastiality. (T-rooters are still more exception, because they are in the extraordinary special position. Rooters are inapplicable to any case.) 'Family and childcare' In general, sergals consider their community to be one large "family". They will raise their children communally regardless of blood relationship if they are part of the same social group. It is common for females to bear the young of males other than their partner, who never mind the mating with others in the group. It is not unusual for there to be a few homosexuals among the group as well. As it is common for both partners to work, couples will usually entrust their offspring to communal child care facilities for their safety. Educational facilities like schools also exist. Southern sergals living among agudners will almost never raise their children alone. Northern sergal children are fed the blood of animals and liquified plant matter until they are able to swallow solid food. Industrial food production in the South has allowed for a range of commercial liquid food for infants that are especially popular in the South. 'Children and growth' Sergals are born with grayish fur regardless of their ethnicity, a feature common to all Eltus races. Their fur will begin to take on its natural regional color upon reaching the equivalent of two earth years in age. Children grow and mature relatively quickly and are considered young adults by the age of ten years. ::Note:: Whether this is in Earth years or Tal years has not been decided yet; the difference between time on Earth and time on Tal also has not been decided yet. Northern sergal children often play with primitive creatures found near their homes. However, this rash decision often results in mutilation or death. Southern and Eastern sergal children are more sociable and often play well with other races such as agudners and nevreans. 'Jobs for them' Their movements and actions tend to be rough and bold, and as such, they are not well suited for jobs that require fine motor skills or concentration. However, they possess strong intuition and a good sense of their natural environment which makes them excellent at hunting. Sergals usually end up as either combatants or manual laborers. A typical sergal occupation would be a soldier, guard, hunter, fisher, farmer, construction worker or industrial laborer. But their good intuition and sense for any natural environment gave them the ability of biology student. Such biology student sergals were used as employee scholar with agudner technology slaves in Shigu Kingdom. There are also many shamans in them due to their deeply religious nature. Generally, a whole of sergals have strong ability for shamanism. Especially all of Northern sergals have higher thing of those. Shaman sergals do a shrine rituals such as a ceremonies, a praying for rain, a praying for sunny, and an exorcising. Also some of them perform a magic rituals such as an incantation, a curse, a fortunetelling, and other miscellaneous praying. They do pilgrimage to dozens of small shrines in each places of planet Tal, to get the super spiritual powers that they believe that it can make them be able to do both of shrine rituals and magic rituals. But there are some small shrines on dangerous Talyxian-Plants areas also. Especially, pilgrimage to small shrine of Magoe-th-eta have high risk due to many dangerous wildlives and so on. 'In ancient time' Sergals are generally weak in combat without their weapons (details are written at next section). Before developing these weapons even the northerners were unable to hunt large prey, so in earlier times they had to simply run from larger creatures, catch smaller animals with their own feet, and subsist on protein rich plants for sustenance. This history of being at the mercy of their natural surroundings has led to the fear and respect towards nature that defined Northern sergal culture in their earlier years. However, once they possessed these weapons, they were able to hunt larger creatures for their meat and consumption of plants became obsolete. Some Northern sergals were able to escape their primordial surroundings, expanding to the east and interbreeding with Southern Sergals giving rise to their eastern cousins. As these Eastern sergals mingled with Southern sergals and the agudners, their technique and technology were further improved. Their hunting abilities continued to be refined, and their fear and religious faith in their surroundings weakened in response. Still, to this day many Northern sergals still consider the primitive beasts of the north to be of special significance as a source of both fear and food. 'Weapons and combat' Sergals are most adept at close to middle range combat. Their bones are strong but due to their slender posture they do not use very heavy armor. 'Main weapons' Sergals prefer to use a lance, spear, javelin, long-sword, two-handed sword, sabre, slingshot, or occasionally a mace when fighting in combat. They sometimes also put metal blades on their legs and claws to enhance their close range killing ability. These were developed mainly by the Shigu Clan but their use is disliked as they are considered excessively cruel. Sergals tend not to use larger shields, but a small type of shield attached to their forearm is commonly employed. Sergals have wide peripheral vision and excellent situational awareness, but their overall quality of vision is poor. Due to the orientation of their eyes, they are unable to focus on single target well, and they cannot successfully use projectile weapons without assistance. However, they are able to use guns at close range quite well. 'In unarmed situations' In close range unarmed combat, tackles, jumping kicks, and biting are common methods of defense. Their reliance on running attacks puts them at a disadvantage in enclosed spaces. Damage from bite wounds is not as severe as that of a female nevrean, as sergals do not have as many teeth and their jaws are not as strong. 'Combat style and ability' Sergals specialise in teamwork during hunting and combat in a manner similar to a canine pack. Their main proficiency is in evasion and strong offensive abilities, featuring quick, dynamic movements and leveraging their strong jumping ability. Their strength is in close range combat, and they can quickly close the distance from mid range engagements. They will take advantage of their high stamina to run long distances, chasing down their enemy or prey until they do not have the strength to escape. Due to their size, their agility is inferior to Nevreans, but once they are up to speed, they can move the fastest and furthest of any Eltus race. Sergal soldiers wear relatively light combat armour made of ceramic and can disregard their own defense to a degree when facing off against an opponent. Sergals secrete a large amount of adrenaline during combat, and can ignore minor injuries and distractions. Their sensitivity to pain is dulled and their focus is sharpened significantly. However their critical thinking also deteriorates and they will behave like a pack of lemmings without sufficiently skilled leadership. 'Sergal armor' There are regional variations in sergal armor. Especially, the armor used by the North and the South both come from very different backgrounds. Northern and Southern Northern armor was originally crafted from bone and served the purpose of protecting the wearer when in combat with the dangerous primitive creatures of the North. Since then, and until the Shigu Kingdom founded, they made simple armor using this method: they dug up clay from boggy places that had raw ceramic materials, dried it out and ground it into a powder, mixed it with the fiber from some plants, then finally cast it into a mold and fired it at high temperature. This armor covered only the most important parts of the body such as the head and chest, and was bound together with strings. Some of this armor was also made to resemble the creatures they fought. After Rain Silves established the Shigu clan and claimed dominance over the Northern sergals, agudner "technology slaves" were brought in from the East and the Eastern armor was revised for pure combat use. The resulting armor design is now regarded as typical sergal armor. Northerners originally could not make such armor because of their lack of technology. 2016/06/01 False information was corrected: Shigu revised Eastern armor, not Southern armor. . They wear metallic armor and mainly guard fashionable neighborhoods, shrines, and Eltus-plant gardens. They have a long history and haven't changed much since the beginning of Gold Ring.]] The Southern sergals did not have to fight such dangerous beasts and originally developed metal armor for ceremonial use and fighting off bandits. Once trade between the South and East was established, typical Southern ceremonial armor was completed by agudner craftsmans who came over from East. 2016/05/31 The canon was changed: the material of Southern armor became metal instead of ceramic. Eastern and Western Eastern armor is made from ceramic and was developed separately from the Southern armor because metal is not excavated in East. Over time, the ceramic armor became higher quality through a technique from the agudners. There are also many kinds of armor made out of materials from creatures just like the old Northern armor. However, all the designs of their armor changed suddenly before and after the World War. Western armor is made from materials from creatures just like the old Northern style, and is light and decorative. Because Western sergals were almost destroyed by General Rain, many historical details about them including their armor is lost. 'Northern sergals' Moved to Northern Sergals 'Southern sergals' Moved to Southern Sergals 'Eastern sergals' Moved to Eastern Sergals 'Western sergals' Moved to Western Sergals 'Gallery' 'Trivia' There isn't any particular origin for the name; Mick39 merely named them with her sense of euphony. The fact that "Saagar"(सागर) in Hindi signifies the waterside (sea, lake, etc.) is really just by coincidence and there's no connection. They are widely known from image boards, and furry sites in particular and are more well-known than the rest of the setting from which they come. Most only know of the existence of Sergals without knowing the whole creative world of Vilous. About the originally base of sergals, it is often contained in discussion by fandoms. Actually, origin of sergal is Rabbit and Fighter Aircraft. Especially their feet were based on rabbits or kangaroos at first, so their feet are totally different from birds or raptors. 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